Abstract

While prior works have examined the impact of several review and reviewer characteristics, the impact of review dissimilarity on economic outcomes has not been studied nor is it well understood. Consumers may value dissimilar reviews when making decisions as such reviews help reduce uncertainty. The effect of review dissimilarity on consumer choices also depends on review volume, a readily observable heuristic cue that can also affect the uncertainty regarding a product or service. We use a dataset from Yelp that provides reviews and related information for restaurants to investigate whether review dissimilarity impacts a restaurant’s economic outcomes, as measured by check-ins. We further examine whether the influence of review dissimilarity on restaurant check-ins changes with review volume. We show that review dissimilarity on aggregate positively impacts restaurant check-ins. This impact decreases with review volume, which serves as an easily observable heuristic cue to the reader. When accounting for positive and negative dissimilar reviews separately, we find that both review dissimilarities have a positive impact on check-ins when review volume is low. As the review volume increases this impact diminishes for both dissimilarities. Further, the impact of negative review dissimilarity on check-ins becomes negative at high levels of review volume. Our findings have useful implications for review sites (platforms), businesses, and contributors (reviewers).

DOI

10.17705/1jais.00998

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